Wireless local area networks (WLANs), also referred to as WiFi networks, typically include an access point (AP) and one or more client stations. Development of WLAN standards such as the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n Standards has improved single-user peak data throughput in the network. For example, the IEEE 802.11b Standard single-user peak data throughput of 11 megabits per second (Mbps); the IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g Standards specify a single-user peak data throughput of 54 Mbps; the IEEE 802.11n Standard specifies a single-user peak data throughput of 600 Mbps; and IEEE 802.11ac Standard specifies a single-user peak data throughput in the gigabits per second (Gbps). Newer standards aim at providing even greater throughputs, such as throughputs in the tens of Gbps range.
Existing systems sometimes employ multiple receive antennas to improve reception through the selection of the stronger signal or combination of individual signals at a receiver. For example, in a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system, signals from two or more receive antennas, which usually correspond to the same transmit signal, are combined to recover transmitted information at the receiver to improve decoding accuracy. However, decoding at a MIMO receiver generally cannot be done by superimposing the received signals due to multi-path fading.